Captain Weber turned away, passing the sleeve of his coat over his eyes,
and so smearing his face with the gore which still flowed from the wound
in his forehead, as he slowly left the cabin.

The steward did not come back; but gradually the blood resumed its
wonted course, and Isabel's consciousness returned.

"Where is my father?" she asked. "What has happened?"

"The brig has been attacked by pirates. They are beaten off, and your
father is safe."

"Santa Maria! my arm, how stiff it feels! Ah, now I remember," she
continued, half rising, and a look of honour overspreading her
countenance.

"But for your scream," replied Hughes, "I should have been taken by
surprise. The smoke of the gun was in my eyes, blinding me, and so I
could not save you from the felon's blow."

The wounded arm, with its stained bandages, the kneeling figure, all
begrimed with smoke, the certainty of her father's safety, and of the
departure of the pirates, seemed to strike the girl's imagination. A
smile passed over her face.

"Isabel," said the soldier with a sudden burst of passion, his emotion
mastering him, "I have loved you from the first time I ever saw you!"

The black eyes had been gazing on him with a wild vacant look, as the
girl lived over again, in imagination, the terrible scene she had
witnessed on deck, when the bulky form of the Malay leader had so nearly
borne her lover down; the day, too, when on the banks of the Zambesi he
had stood between her and a terrible death; and now the tension of her
nerves giving way, she sobbed deeply and convulsively.

"I have loved you ever since I saw you, Isabel, and strange to say it is
the only love I have ever known," he continued, breaking the silence.

The heavy, convulsive sobs shook her slight frame, but she made no
answer.

"Left an orphan when a mere child, joining my father's regiment when a
youth, I have never known what even a parent's love may be, and it seems
now as if the devotion of a whole life were concentred on you, Isabel."

Again the soldier paused, and the sobs of the girl were alone heard in
the cabin. The grey light of dawn was showing itself down the hatchway,
and through the ports. The same grey dawn which was lighting the dying
seaman's long journey, was gradually creeping over the lover's dream.

He took her hand carefully, gently, for it was the injured arm; he
looked up into her face.

"Isabel, can you return a soldier's love?" he asked,